Sixty people attended our end-of-year Peace Run dinner. We held it at a spacious Indian restaurant in Auckland and bringing together past and present supporters, long-time friends of founder Sri Chinmoy and our relay team.
It's always a greatly popular event with musical performances, a few speeches, a banquet meal, the passing of the torch, Peace Run video highlights, stories from team members and gifts for all of the guests. It's a wonderful way to deepen our ongoing friendships with so many diverse people. We had world record holding athletes, interfaith folk, NZ Peace Foundation directors, spiritual leaders, civic VIP's, university lecturers, education authorities and prominent community and ethnic leaders sitting around with our host and hostess team members in a wonderfully diverse mix.
Two record holding ultra runners with torch.
Precious and Liz McKenzie.
Especially popular - apart from the great food! - were several musical performances that included arrangements of the Peace Run song and various other peace-themed songs. And while the torch was passed around the guests, we sang the 'Shanti, shanti' song with a number of guests inspired to join in. It really is a unique and effective way to highlight the Peace Run and to deepen our friendships or create new friendships with the many kindred spirits.
